MinnMax Interview - Pokémon’s Art Director On Leaving Game Freak For The Plucky Squire (Patreon)

In this MinnMax Interview, Ben Hanson talks with James Turner about his new studio All Possible Futures (that he founded with Jonathan Biddle) and their debut game The Plucky Squire published by Devolver Digital. The game takes cues from Nintendo titles like Zelda and has players controlling Jot on a journey through a 2D picture book but then also popping out into 3D and exploring a bedroom. James also talks about his full journey as a developer, starting out at Genius Sonority on games Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness before working at Game Freak on Pokémon Black and White and eventually becoming the art director for Pokémon Sword & Shield.

Watch and share the video version of this interview here - https://youtu.be/whw9U32iZMU

To jump to a particular discussion, check out the timestamps below...   

00:00:00 - Intro 

00:01:36 - James Turner and his great doodles on social media 

00:04:05 - The role of feedback on his projects 

00:05:21 - Shipping Pokémon Sword and Shield 

00:08:16 - Why he left Game Freak 

00:12:32 - Game Freak's independent spirit and projects 

00:14:30 - The transition back to England 

00:16:06 - Forming All Possible Futures 

00:20:22 - The team behind The Plucky Squire 

00:22:55 - The Plucky Squire's biggest challenges 

00:26:25 - Thoughts on playing through The Plucky Squire 

00:27:17 - The origins of The Plucky Squire

 00:34:17 - The biggest surprise of the game's development 

00:37:33 - Comparisons to The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds 

00:39:00 - Meeting Satoru Iwata at Nintendo 

00:42:21 - Playing a Wii prototype with Shigeru Miyamoto 

00:44:39 - The Pokémon he designed 

00:48:29 - Misconceptions about Game Freak 

00:49:57 - Finding the right size for a development studio 

00:53:49 - All Possible Futures and its independence

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